Endocrine Abstracts

Men and women who compete in sporting events at the international level perform a tremendous volume of exercise training. This training is necessary to promote the high level of adaptations in the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and neuroendocrine systems which are required in order to improve human performance. The incentives to perform such rigorous and demanding exercise training, and compete well in sporting activities, are substantial. An Olympic medal can result in large...

Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are known to be misused both in competitive and in non-competive sports. As AAS stimulate protein synthesis in muscle cells, athletes expect performance-enhancing effects beyond that brought about by training alone. In 1974 the IOC and the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) first banned the use of AAS. This prohibition encompassed only synthetic steroids, such as metandienone, stanozolol etc. and the misuse of endogenous steroid...

Recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) is abused as a performance enhancing drug, but our knowledge about this is mainly based on rumours, confessions of former athletes and on actions of the police. For many years, the detection of rhGH application by biochemical methods was thought to be impossible. Physiological and biochemical properties of hGH made the development of a test method difficult. rhGH is identical in amino acid sequence and chemical properties to the main, 22...

Sports authorities prohibited the use of EPO in 1988 and at present any analogue or mimetic is also included in the list of prohibited substances from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The presentation will summarize the main analytical strategies developed to identify the presence of recombinant erythropoietin (EPO) administered as a doping agent.Indirect evidence is based on the analysis of blood parameters (haemoglobin, haematocrit, reticulocytes, ...